Yancey Quimper

Yancey Quimper was a member of the Republic of Texas Senate from Xavier County from 1836 to 1837. Quimper was a war hero during the Texas Revolution before entering politics as an opponent of Sam Houston. Quimper sought to have Texas join the United States, and he had muscle in the Congress of the new republic; however, Houston blackmailed him into turning the opinions of his faction in Congress, and he left Texas for good.

Biography
Yancey Quimper was the stepson of Maddie Quimper, and he was raised in Missouri. Yancey did not get along well with his stepmother, often leaving her to do work that he was supposed to have done, as well as constantly pointing out that she was not his real mother. His father died of snakebite in 1821, and his stepmother decided to head to Texas to carve out a piece of land for herself. Yancey, who was young at the time, did not want to leave home, and he attempted to convince his stepmother to take him back to Missouri after the Comanche attacked her settlement. Quimper began to dislike his mother even more when she became a mother figure to Otto McNab, a young boy who came to Texas with his father Finlay McNab. Quimper was an irresponsible young man, and he was too cowardly to kill a chicken to prepare dinner for his family; this habit stayed with him even as he grew older.

Texan soldier
In 1836, he joined the Texas Army during the Texas Revolution, and he fought at the Battle of San Jacinto alongside McNab. McNab captured Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna during the battle, but Quimper was the one who presented the captive general to Sam Houston, and Houston believed that Quimper was responsible for the capture. Quimper rose in rank and acquired new lands, and he became an egotistical man; he had little regard for the Mexicans. In September 1837, he acquired 20,000 acres of land from the Saldana family, angering the bandit Benito Garza, whose mother belonged to the family. McNab warned him about the "verification" of this land, which Garza would see as "stealing"; Quimper responded by saying that the Texas Rangers under Captain Sam Garner would ensure that it was his land.

Quimper also became a senator of the Republic of Texas, and he allied with Senator Courtney against President Houston, believing that Texas should accept annexation by the United States in 1836. Quimper feared that Santa Anna and his army would return, but Houston wanted Texas to have what it needed before it could join the USA. Quimper called Houston a traitor, and Houston would later push Quimper into a shop and confront him alone. Houston told Quimper to use his muscle in Congress to change the vote of the congressmen, and he called him a "sniveling, yellowbelly coward." Quimper was blackmailed by Houston, who threatened to reveal that Otto McNab captured Santa Anna, not Quimper. The annexation treaty was overturned by Congress due to the blackmail threat, as Quimper swayed the vote; he proceeded to leave Texas, never to return.